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Loading... Bedtime Storyby Chloe Hooper
   None No current Talk conversations about this book.   ) Amzzz | Sep 3, 2022 |  Bedtime Story is not the kind of book one might 'review' in the usual sense of casting an evaluative eye over it, as Angela Bennie says, 'to judge well'. To read it is to be aware of the intensity of the author's emotional experience, which she shares with the reader in all its raw honesty. It's not a journey an empathetic reader can 'judge'; it's one that you feel... The award-winning author was working on The Arsonist (see my review) when her partner and father of her two young children was diagnosed with a rare and aggressive blood cancer. Transcending all other consequences of this dreadful diagnosis, is her fear of telling the children. She does not know how to do it, and she researches indefatigably for the right kind of story in our death-denying culture, and she defers telling the boys the news for five months. The reader can sense the disbelief, desperation and her anguish: she knows that denial hampers preparing for the inevitable. There is something very powerful and poignant about the way this memoir says so little about a mother's own terrors while on a quest to protect her children from them. We witness the unspoken all the same. Both these parents are wordsmiths, so it is natural that she seeks the stories that will help her children negotiate the likely loss of their father. In her survey of books that fail to meet her needs and theirs, she ranges across contemporary picture books and classics, and discovers that many of the authors we know (the Brothers Grimm, Tolkien, Dahl, Saint-Exupéry, P.L. Travers, C.S. Lewis) were orphaned themselves. These writers, bereaved as children, wrote enchantments with happy endings, and often embedded in their work is a philosophical framework to deal with the dark. To read the rest of my review please visit https://anzlitlovers.com/2022/02/18/bedtime-story-by-chloe-hooper/ ( ) anzlitlovers | Feb 17, 2022 | no reviews | add a review
Let me tell you a story. When Chloe Hooper's partner is diagnosed with a rare and aggressive cancer, they have to find a way to tell their two young sons. Can the news be broken as a bedtime tale? What practical lessons does children's literature with its innocent orphans and evil adults, magic, monsters and anthropomorphic animals, teach about grief and resilience in real life? As Hooper discovers, 'the right words are an incantation, a spell of hope for the future.' From the Brothers Grimm to Frances Hodgson Burnett and Tolkien and Dahl, all of whom suffered childhood bereavements, Hooper follows the breadcrumbs of the world's favourite authors, searching for the deep wisdom in their books and lives. Part memoir, part manual, in an age of worldwide uncertainty, here is a profound and moving exploration of the dark and light of storytelling. No library descriptions found. |
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 Google Books — Loading...GenresMelvil Decimal System (DDC)155.937Philosophy & psychology Psychology Differential and developmental psychology Environmental psychology Influences of Traumatic Experiences and Bereavement Death and DyingLC ClassificationRatingAverage: (4.33)
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